Episode 8
===
Odelia wasn't the only one listening intently to the conversation; merchants sitting across from the travelers chimed in with their own versions.
"I heard he's looking for his first love, whom he was separated from due to unavoidable circumstances when he was young."
"No, I heard the Grand Duke is searching for the perfect ideal woman he saw in a dream?"
"That's not it, he can't forget his dead lover and takes in any woman who resembles her."
"...Which one is it, then?"
At the rebuke for everyone saying something different, one of the merchants shrugged.
"How would we know when he himself doesn't?"
"What? He doesn't know?"
The traveler asked back, dumbfounded.
"A servant working in the Ducal Palace said so. He barely remembers anything about the woman. Whether he forgot because it was when he was young, or it was a dream, or he has some kind of partial amnesia, I don't know..."
He's holding those extravagant banquets every day to find a woman he doesn't even properly remember?
"Isn't that just crazy?"
"Yeah, he's crazy. Completely and utterly crazy."
The merchant added, circling his finger around his head.
"They say his tone and eyes have completely changed, as if he's possessed by a ghost. People are dying just for displeasing him. He's a tyrant, nothing less."
His tone and eyes have changed?
People are dying just for displeasing him?
That can't be.
Odelia felt an urge to grab the merchant by the collar and shake him, demanding what he was talking about and to stop talking nonsense.
Something was very, very wrong.
"Hmph, that Iron-Blooded Grand Duke..."
The merchant paused for a moment, looking at the sighing traveler, then added in a low voice.
"Anyway, what's certain is that the woman the Grand Duke is looking for has 'blue eyes.' And..."
Here.
He tapped his collarbone area and continued.
"She has a unique scar here. A shape of a semicircle on top of a horizontal line."
"A semicircle on top of a horizontal line... Wait, are you talking about the symbol of God?"
"That's why everyone is saying it might be a Saintess's stigma."
Odelia flinched and, without realizing it, touched her collarbone area with her fingertips.
A semicircle on top of a horizontal line.
That was a scar she got when she was young, while living as a test subject in the Cardel family.
It just happened to resemble the symbol of God by coincidence; it was neither a stigma nor anything else.
It was merely a trace of sacrifice and abuse.
'...Ludville remembered that?'
Combining their conversation, it went like this.
Recently, women from even distant foreign countries were flocking to the Ducal Palace.
Noble bastards, commoners, slaves, dancers, Saintesses, princesses of ruined kingdoms, etc. Their status and stories were all different, but the common point was clear.
'Blue eyes' and 'a scar on the collarbone.'
If they had blue eyes and a scar, they would be qualified to attend the banquet held at the Ducal Palace.
If there was a woman who caught his eye among them, he would allow her to stay in the Ducal Palace and treat her with great respect.
No less than a princess of the Imperial Palace.
But no woman lasted more than fifteen days.
The Grand Duke would suddenly change his mind and throw the woman out of the Ducal Palace.
However, with a huge compensation.
"I heard they're even making fake scars to flock to the Ducal Palace. If they get chosen, they can receive a hefty reward even if they get kicked out, and if they're lucky, they might even become the Grand Duchess."
Moreover, the women chosen by the Grand Duke had another common characteristic.
They generally had a delicate and frail atmosphere and harbored a heartbreaking story.
Thanks to that, the banquet hall was now crowded with women trying to show off their more miserable and unfortunate pasts.
That commonality also... reminded Odelia of herself.
'I thought he wouldn't remember anything.'
To that extent, it was practically searching for people at random, driven only by instinct, with only a few vague fragments of memory.
Ludville had not forgotten Odelia.
Rather, he was obsessed to the point where he was being called crazy by the people of the northern territory.
'...Could it be that Ludville will keep doing that until he finds me?'
For the rest of his life?
'No way.'
I revived him only for this to happen...
Odelia slowly released the fist she had clenched so tightly that her nails were digging into her palm.
'...I need to go check on the situation.'
Odelia stood up from her seat.
There was no time to delay.
She had to go right now.
To the Excepcion territory, where he was.
* * *
Suddenly, a sharp spear was thrust in front of her.
"What do you think you're doing, sneaking in here?"
A guard scanned the woman who had suddenly appeared, from head to toe.
At the end of his gaze was a mixture of mockery and annoyance.
Ice fragments hung from the hem of the robe she was wearing, and snow and mud were filthily matted on her boots.
Traces of someone who couldn't even afford a single carriage and had crossed the northern cold with their bare body.
"Can't you get out of here right now?"
However, the captain of the guard next to him carefully examined the woman's eyes visible beyond the robe.
Ice blue.
A color as clear and transparent as ice.
He stared at the blue eyes for a moment and then said bluntly.
"Scar."
His tone, asking the verification procedure that had been repeated countless times, was weary.
Without a word, Odelia slightly lowered her collar, revealing the scar on her collarbone.
"Let her in."
The guard grumbled and opened the gate.
"Now even vagrants are coming."
The moment she crossed the gate, the fierce northern wind that seemed like it would last forever stopped in an instant.
And the season changed.
Unlike the frozen outside world, the air surrounding the interior was sticky and sweet.
The scents of fragrant fruit wine, honey-soaked fruits, and perfumes that seemed to have gathered all kinds of flowers were mixed together.
It was as if she had entered a midsummer garden.
'So the rumors were true...'
The Ducal Palace was in the middle of a banquet.
The melody of stringed instruments echoed from afar, and a gold-threaded carpet stretched along the marble corridor.
When the door to the banquet hall opened, light, music, fragrance, and laughter poured out all at once.
The Golden Banquet Hall.
That was what this place seemed to be called these days.
This was because the chandeliers crafted with gold filled the ceiling like stars in the night sky.
'...There wasn't anything like this in my past life.'
In just three months.
Odelia looked around with a confused expression.
A wave of silk and lace.
A ripe fragrance like fruit on the verge of rotting.
Laughter more brilliant than jewels.
Women with blue eyes, adorned in extravagant finery, were smiling and dancing.
"...He still hasn't returned."
At that moment, a woman muttered anxiously, biting her lip.
"That Saintess who just went out with His Excellency the Grand Duke, surely she's not the real one, is she?"
At those words, another woman let out a hollow laugh.
"Of course not. What Saintess in the world would attend a banquet to catch the Grand Duke's eye?"
"You can't be so sure."
Odelia's gaze quietly turned towards them.
"When she was young, she lost all her memories in an accident and grew up as a Saintess in the temple. If the scar on her collarbone is a stigma... she might be the 'real one' that His Excellency is looking for."
"Oh my, how dramatic."
One woman sneered, covering her mouth with a fan.
"It sounded plausible... but I don't know. Would His Excellency give his heart to that obvious fraud?"
"Well, even so, it won't last more than fifteen days at most. It's always been like that."
Even as they said that, the women were constantly glancing at the entrance of the banquet hall with anxious eyes.
Who would be 'chosen' this time?
Gazes mixed with expectation, jealousy, hope, and anxiety passed between them countless times.
Bang!
That was the moment.
A tremendous roar erupted from the entrance of the banquet hall.
"Ah, that scared me."
"What's going on?"
The women adorned with splendid fabrics and jewels, and their patrons, stirred and buzzed.
The melody of the stringed instruments stopped instantly, and the sound of conversation ceased.
Breaking through the commotion, footsteps echoed.
Thump, thump—
Regular like a trained soldier, and heavy as if a huge body was pressing down on the floor, the footsteps grew louder and louder.
People fell silent at the same time.
Even if the master of ceremonies didn't announce his appearance, everyone knew.
The owner of those footsteps.
Ludeviel Excepcion.
With his sudden appearance, a terrible stench of blood, which could not be covered by perfume, wafted in.
"Eugh!"
"Aaaah!"
Everyone screamed at the same time.
Because a man, limp like a corpse, was hanging from his hand.
